The Hard Road

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Myra is a stenographer to a rich brother, Thorne. Her sister, Bess, is a salesgirl. Bess and Tom, an honest workman, are in love. Thorne makes love to Myra, giving her flowers and making things pleasant by inviting her out. With no thought of harm at first, Myra drifts and gradually yields. She sends a note to her mother saying she is tired of all work and will try to play. The mother has a stroke of paralysis. Bess goes to Thorne and pleads for news of her sister, but he disclaims all knowledge. Going wearily home from work one evening, Bess watches a richly-gowned woman alight from her limousine, and recognizes Myra. She follows and begs Myra to return home. Myra contrasts her luxury with Bess' poverty and refuses. Bess says, "It may not seem so now, but yours is the 'hard road' and mine the easy and happy one." Learning that her mother is dying Myra hesitates. Thorne enters, bids her choose, and loving him, she stays. A year later, Bess is happily married. Myra, living a life of luxury and gaiety, is miserable, for Thorne is tiring of her. They quarrel; he insults her, and finally breaks an engagement on the plea of business. Myra, dressed and waiting, decides to show him there are others, and in a spirit of bravado and misery, telephones for Lawton, who has attempted to make love to her. They go to a gay restaurant and there meet Thorne with a rich girl whom he is wooing, and her father, the girl having, in all innocence, begged to be taken where she could see "life." Lawton tells Myra that the girl is Thorne's fiancée, and Myra, already miserable, nervous, hysterical, loses all control of herself and makes a pitiable and scandalous scene. Thorne pretends she is crazy, and orders the waiters to throw her out. The girl, unexpectedly, pities her, puts her arms around her and speaks gently, and Myra suddenly comes to herself. Quietly, pathetically, heartbroken she leaves. Thorne refuses to have anything more to do with her. She tries to get a position as stenographer, but fails. Finally she succeeds in securing a position as maid. Lawton comes to the house, his aunt's, and she is dismissed. Six years later, Bess and her two children while Christmas shopping meet Myra, an outcast. Bess takes her home, and Myra thinks she has at last found rest, but she overhears Tom, kind, but with his children uppermost in his heart, say they can't keep her, as she would disgrace the children. Like a hunted thing she leaves. Having no place to go, and being thoroughly repentant, Myra decides to enter into the door of the "Sheltering Arms" when she sees another derelict, whom she thinks needs help. On speaking to the derelict (much to her surprise), she finds it is none other than Thorne, the man she loved and who wrecked her life. She gently takes him by the arm and together they walk to the door of the "Sheltering Arms" and enter as the picture fades out.